Self-Timer

The guiding motto of this exhibition is photography by means of a self-timer or shutter release, a type of photography that is extremely popular both in everyday life and in art. A selection of works from the Austrian Federal Photography Collection − on permanent loan to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg since 2002 − is juxtaposed with international artists working in the field of “extended” photography. In about eighty art works of the exhibition the performative act of the self-taken photograph is represented by means of films, videos, small-screen projections, artists’ books and performances.

The invention of photography opened a new field of activity for many artists during the 20th and 21st century. The self-timer acts here as an operative and symbolic tool of revolt, serving less the need for self-representation rather than the act of self-stylization. The practice of taking photos of oneself is thus found to interact with technological developments. This is shown in the composition of visible release cables, in the digital remote release or simply in the stretched-out hand, among others. To be the photographer and the subject photographed at the same time requires various forms of mechanisms of control. The gaze into the camera creates distance in itself, yet also serves to monitor one’s own self. A visual relationship thus emerges between subject and world under the medial conditions prevailing. As can be seen in one’s own works, publishing the private is sometimes accompanied by creating fiction and ultimately with a loss of artistic control.

The design of the exhibition takes up the level of intimacy and revelation, of the private and the public, of showing and concealing that are inherent to these works. It is bringing the element of a screen into play as a kind of agent provocateur. Straddling the generations, the exhibition places the omnipresent theme of photographic self-representation in the context of the history of media-critical art, thus continuing into the future self-timer photography as an emancipatory “click”.

We would like to warn you that the works shown in this exhibition may possibly offend your moral sense.